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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion At Victoria University College, Wellington, N. Z. Vol. 24, No. 4. 1961

Antarctic Huts Restoration 1960-61

page 11

Antarctic Huts Restoration 1960-61

[Contributed by Mike Prebble, a graduate in geography from Victoria University, who was one of the two successful New Zealand Antarctic Society applicants for the Huts Restoration Party.]

While in Antarctica this season I spent most of my time with the Huts Restoration Party at Cape Evans and Cape Royds on Ross Island. After flying down to Scott Base early in December, I Joined I he rest of the party at Cape Evans (25 miles from Scott Base), by a tractor trip across the sea Ice. Our party of five consisted of Les Quartermain, leader; Jack Sandman, carpenter; Bob Buckley and Colin Jenness, up to Christmas; and Eric Gibbs and Graeme Wilson from the New Year onwards. Cape Evans, where Scott's old hut for his 1910-13 expedition and the departure point for his tragic journey to the Pole, is situated, was also the home of the 1915-17 component of Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Since 1917 till the time of the U.S. Operation Windmill In 1947 the hut lay undisturbed and full of Ice and snow.

With renewed interest being paid to the old huts since the International Geophysical Year, and the establishment of New Zealand's Scott Base and the American McMurdo two miles away, the old huts have been visited by many people during the summer months. Our job was to open the Cape Evans and Royds huts, dig out the ice and snow which filled the interior, make the huts weathertight, and generally restore them to an "as was" condition.

Cape Evans Hut

The first three weeks at Cape Evans hut entailed much hard work, namely the removal of 250 cubic yards of ice and snow, using pick, shovel and sledge. Later on we replaced broken windows and sashes, fixed two new doors, and covered the roof with tarpaulins which were battened down and painted. Inside the hut many objects of interest were uncovered and thawed out. Among these were reindeer sleeping bags, balaclavas, home-made gloves, skis, and a primitive pair of crampons. The food, now over 50 years old, was still perfectly edible. Old records including met. observations for 1915, a diary, some letters, and several rare books were also discovered. The scientists' lab. was still well stocked with chemicals and equipment. and Sir Charles Wright, the 73-year-old Canadian physicist who accompanied Scott on his last expedition, was flown out to Evans by the Americans and was able to help us delineate the boundaries of the different scientists in the hut. Parting's dark room we discovered fully stocked, the ice crystals inside his room forming fantastic patterns as they hung in festoons from the shelves. We even found some exposed film from the collection of this master of photographers. Dr. Wilson's cubicle was interesting in that we found there a preserved Emperor penguin he had been working on. The scientists of Scott's last expedition were each in their different fields quite remarkable, and fortunate indeed were we to uncover the cubicles of such eminent men as Priestly, Griffith. Taylor. Debenham, Wright and Evans.

Memories Of Hardship

Cape Evans hut itself is big (25ft. × 50ft.), and was set out in navy style by Scott with a distinction between the wardroom and the men's quarters. Twenty-live men occupied the hut 1910-13, while only 10 occupied it from the 1915-17 party. In the gravel beach on the north side of the hut two anchors are embedded to which (he "S.S. Aurora" was tied when she was unloading stores for the 1915-17 party. Unfortunately a blizzard sprang up and swept the ship out to sea, without any of the main depot stores, sledging equipment and winter clothing, having been landed. The men faced a rigorous winter. though they managed to faithfully lay their depots, despite great hardship and starvation, in the same fashion as Hillary did for Fuchs. Three men, however, died in the struggle for survival and, as it turned out, Shackleton never had the opportunity to use the depots, as his ship was crushed in the Weddell Sea ice.

Cape Evans itself Is a featureless promontary which contains several fresh water lakes, and Is a favourite resting place for skua gulls. Above the cape, and along the edge of the Banne Glacier draining from Mt. Erebus, is a morainic ramp from which we obtained magnificent views across McMurdo Sound to the Western Peaks 50 miles away, and to the south to Hut Point and 9,000ft. Mt. Discovery. All the time 13,000ft. Mt. Erebus is an imposing sight behind the camp, with a plume of smoke issuing from its snowy, volcanic cone, and its wide, tumbling glaciers suddenly terminating in sheer 200ft. cliffs as they drop into the sea ice.

Cape Royds Hut

Cape Royds hut, where an American chopper airlifted our camp in January, was the home of Shackleton's 1907-09 expedition, and in my opinion one of the most remarkable of Antarctic expeditions. Not only was Mt. Erebus scaled for the first time, and the South Magnetic Pole reached, but Shackleton came to within 90 miles of his goal, the geographic South Pole. The hut at Royds, smaller than that at Evans, was free of ice and snow, and in relatively good condition. We repaired it in places, however, and tidied up the large dump of foodstuffs stacked around the hut. Two or three minutes from the hut was a large penguin rookery of about 1,000 birds, and these humorous characters always proved great devourers of our film supply. Cape Royds (1000ft. high) itself is a large peninsula and was often the object of our "nightly" wanderings when work was finished. Cape Barre, five miles away, a 400ft. high volcanic plug, was also a popular tramp, and on one occasion we found a mummified seal there. Cape Bird and impressive Mt. Bird (6000ft.), with its terrific face of tumbling icefalls and glaciers extending nearly the whole of its height, was another wonderful view from the many vantage points in the area.

The panoramic vistas on every hand are certainly breathtaking in their beauty and everchanging character. The 24 hours' daylight undoubtedly lends itself to tramping and mountaineering, though care has to be exercised against the fickleness of weather, the possibility of route finding in poor visibility, and the exceedingly deceptive scale of the landscape. It is easy to overdo it, and owing to the extreme clarity of the atmosphere objects are often three times further than estimated. For example, the seemingly close and commanding 12,000ft. Royal Society Range, across the sound from McMurdo, is all of 50 miles distant, though it appears just a "stone's throw" away.

The Future Challenge

As one of the last frontiers left to man, Antarctica's five million square miles are relentlessly being covered by air and land. The filling in of the blank on the map, the gathering of valuable scientific research, and the adaptation by man's ingenuity to a stage of permanent habitation with his South Polar environment are, in my opinion, some of the most exciting activities going on at present. The I.G.Y. work has not ceased, and is increasingly bringing a closer understanding of the Polar regions, and is thereby emphasizing their importance to the rest of the world. Although greater mobility in transportation and the unleashing of a terrific programme of scientific research is helping to alter our concepts of Antarctica, the inspiration of the "Heroic Age" of Antartic explorers still persists in the activities of the many nations working to unlock the secrets of the "Great White South."